In Victorian Era if a Womans Fiance Died Did They Get Engaged Again
Marriage in the 19th Century
In the 19th century Britain women were expected to marry and take children. Notwithstanding, in that location was in fact a shortage of available men. Census figures for the period reveal there were far more women than men. There were iii main reasons why women outnumbered men. The mortality charge per unit for boys was far higher than for girls; a large number of males served in the armed forces abroad and men were more likely to emigrate than women. Past 1861 there were 10,380,285 women living in England and Wales but but nine,825,246 men.
The laws in Britain were based on the thought that women would become married and that their husbands would accept intendance of them. Before the passing of the 1882 Married Holding Act, when a woman got married her wealth was passed to her husband. If a woman worked subsequently matrimony, her earnings likewise belonged to her married man.
The idea was that upper and heart course women had to stay dependent on a man: showtime as a daughter and later every bit a married woman. One time married, it was extremely hard for a woman to obtain a divorce. The Matrimonial Causes Human activity of 1857 gave men the correct to divorce their wives on the grounds of adultery. However, married women were not able to obtain a divorce if they discovered that their husbands had been unfaithful. In one case divorced, the children became the man'southward belongings and the mother could be prevented from seeing her children.
by the Women's Liberty League (February, 1911)
Primary Sources
(i) In 1854 Caroline Norton gave an account of how her hubby beat her during her marriage.
We had been married about 2 months, when, one evening, after nosotros had all withdrawn to our apartments, we were discussing some opinion Mr. Norton had expressed; I said, that "I thought I had never heard and so silly or ridiculous a decision." This remark was punished by a sudden and vehement boot; the blow reached my side; it caused great pain for several days, and being afraid to remain with him, I sat up the whole dark in some other flat.
Four or 5 months afterwards, when we were settled in London, we had returned home from a ball; I had then no personal dispute with Mr. Norton, but he indulged in bitter and fibroid remarks respecting a young relative of mine, who, though married, connected to dance - a do, Mr. Norton said, no husband ought to permit. I defended the lady spoken of when he all of a sudden sprang from the bed, seized me by the nape of the neck, and dashed me down on the floor. The sound of my fall woke my sister and brother-in-police force, who slept in a room below, and they ran upwardly to the door. Mr. Norton locked it, and stood over me, declaring no i should enter. I could not speak - I but moaned. My blood brother-in-law burst the door open and carried me downstairs. I had a swelling on my head for many days afterwards.
(2) In 1852 Florence Nightingale wrote Cassandra but on the advice of friends she never published the book.
Women are never supposed to take whatever occupation of sufficient importance not to exist interrupted, except "suckling their fools"; and women themselves accept accepted this, have written books to support it, and have trained themselves so as to consider whatever they do as not of such value to the world every bit others, just that they can throw information technology up at the first "claim of social life". They take accustomed themselves to consider intellectual occupation as a merely selfish amusement, which it is their "duty" to give up for every trifler more selfish than themselves.
Women never have an half-hr in all their lives (except before and after anybody is upwardly in the firm) that they tin can call their own, without fright of offending or of pain someone. Why do people sit upward late, or, more rarely, go up so early? Not considering the 24-hour interval is not long enough, simply considering they accept "no time in the day to themselves".
The family? It is too narrow a field for the development of an immortal spirit, be that spirit male person or female. The family unit uses people, not for what they are, not for what they are intended to be, merely for what it wants for - its own uses. It thinks of them non equally what God has fabricated them, but every bit the something which it has bundled that they shall be. This organisation dooms some minds to incurable infancy, others to silent misery.
(3) In her book Women'south Suffrage published in 1911, Millicent Garrett Fawcett criticised the passing of the 1857 Divorce Deed.
In 1857 the Divorce Act was passed, and, as is well known, prepare by law a different moral standard for men and women. Nether this Act, which is however in strength, a man tin obtain the dissolution of the spousal relationship if he can testify one act of adultery on the part of his wife; but a woman cannot get her spousal relationship dissolved unless she tin prove that her husband has been guilty both of infidelity and cruelty.
(four) Charlotte Despard wrote about her feelings as a young woman in the 1850s in a brief, unpublished memoir.
It was a foreign time, unsatisfactory, full of ungratified aspirations. I longed ardently to be of some use in the globe, merely as we were girls with a little money and born into a particular social position, it was not thought necessary that we should practice anything but charm ourselves until the time and the opportunity of marriage came forth. 'Better any marriage at all than none', a foolish old aunt used to say.
The woman of the well-to-do classes was made to understand early that the only door open to a life at once like shooting fish in a barrel and respectable was that of marriage. Therefore she had to depend upon her expert looks, co-ordinate to the ideals of the men of her solar day, her charm, her trivial drawing-room arts.
(v) In October 1874, Elizabeth Wolstenholme, who was five months pregnant, married Ben Elmy at Kensington Annals Office. Some members of the Married Women's Property Committee believed that Wolstenholme should resign as they felt the "scandal was harming the women's movement. Josephine Butler sent a letter to women leaders defending Elizabeth Wolstenholme and Ben Elmy.
They have sinned against no police force of Purity. They went through a nearly solemn ceremony and vow before witnesses. I knew of this true union before God - early in 1874. Information technology would accept been a legal spousal relationship in Scotland. They blundered; but their whole activeness was grave and pure. The English marriage laws are impure. English language law… sins against the law of purity. It is a species of legal prostitution the woman being the man's property.
(6) In 1867 Lydia Becker made a speech at a meeting of the Manchester Suffrage Order on the subject of union.
I think that the notion that the husband ought to have the headship or say-so over his wife, is the root of all social evils… Husband and married woman should be co-equal. In a happy marriage at that place is no question of 'obedience'.
(vii) In 1879 Emmeline Goulden married Dr. Richard Pankhurst in 1879.
I came to know Dr. Richard Pankhurst, a lawyer… who was a supporter of woman's suffrage… Dr. Pankhurst acted as counsel for the Manchester women who tried in 1868 to exist placed on the register as voters. He also drafted the bill giving married women absolute command over their property and earnings, a bill, which became law in 1882.
About a year after my spousal relationship my daughter Christabel was built-in, and in some other eighteen months my second daughter Sylvia came. Two other children followed and for some years I was rather securely immersed in my domestic diplomacy. I was never so absorbed with home and children, nonetheless, that I lost interest in customs affairs. Dr. Pankhurst did not want that I should plow myself into a household machine.
(8) Louisa Garrett Anderson, the daughter of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, wrote about attitudes towards wedlock when her mother was a young woman in the 1860s.
To remain single was thought a disgrace and at thirty an unmarried woman was chosen an quondam maid. After their parents died, what could they exercise, where could they go? If they had a brother, equally unwanted and permanent guests, they might live in his house. Some had to maintain themselves and then, indeed, difficulty arose. The only paid occupation open to them a gentlewoman was to go a governess under despised conditions and a miserable salary. None of the professions were open to women; there were no women in Government offices; no secretarial piece of work was washed past them. Even nursing was disorganized and disreputable until Florence Nightingale recreated it every bit a profession by founding the Nightingale School of Nursing in 1860.
(9) In 1883 Isabella Ford described her first visit to the Independent Labour Party in Colne Valley.
At that place was a tea party… The men poured out the tea, cut the bread and butter, and washed everything up, without any feminine aid and without any accidents! A political party, that included the educational activity of men… also as the education of women, that gave one such skill and dexterity, and the other wider and truer views of life, was the political party for me I felt, so I joined.
(10) In 1890 Clementina Blackness wrote a pamphlet On Matrimony where she explained why some women were unwilling to become married.
Marriage, similar all other human institutions, is not permanent and alterable in form, just necessarily changes shape with the changes of social development. The forms of marriage are transitional, like the societies in which they exist. Each age keeps getting alee of the police force, nonetheless there are always some laggards of whom the law for the time being is alee. The main tendency of our own historic period is towards greater freedom and equality, and the law is slowly modifying to friction match…. At present the strict letter of the police denies to a married woman the freedom of action which more and more women are coming to regard not only as their just but besides as their dearest treasure; and this naturally causes a sure unwillingness on the office of the thoughtful women to marry… That law and custom should alike enlarge and so equally to suit the growing ideal is plain desirable… we can all of the states influence custom a picayune, since custom, after all, is only made upward of many individual examples… Easier divorce may exist necessary, but the opportunity of making wiser and happier marriages is more necessary however.
(11) In December 1909, Elizabeth Robins wrote an article, Votes for Women, that criticised British marriage laws.
The children's mother has no legal right to a vocalism in deciding how they shall exist nursed; how or where educated; what trade or profession they shall adopt; in what form of religion they shall be instructed.
If a father wants his kid vaccinated, or if he is only indifferent, and and then does non lay an objection before the magistrate, the mother cannot prevent the kid being vaccinated. If the father wishes the kid to be left unvaccinated, the female parent cannot legally accept it washed.
The late Sir Horace Davy introduced a Bill, which proposed that begetter and mother should be acknowledged equal guardians of their children. This just and logical reform secured only nineteen votes in the House of Eatables.
(12) On 21st May 1897 Selina Cooper gave birth to a baby son. Named John Ruskin afterward Selina's favourite writer, the infant was sometimes taken out in his pram by his five-twelvemonth-old cousin. Selina'due south daughter, Mary later recalled what happened when John Ruskin was four-months former.
My cousin took him down Clitheroe Route, where the station is… there was a thunderstorm and the baby got soaked… My cousin was but petty and he couldn't pull the pram cover down. My mother was frantic… when the baby came home he was in a puddle of water… John Ruskin caught severe bronchitis… he died from bronchitic convulsions… She never talked virtually her dead son… Afterward she died I found an old book… Information technology was full of pictures of babies she cut out of newspapers. Young babies… I never saw her cutting out these pictures… She must have been gradually cutting them out all the fourth dimension. Oh, there must have been most twenty. And all babies, non young children.
(xiii) In 1891 Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence began work as a social worker in a working-class area of London. She wrote virtually her experiences in her book My Function in a Changing Earth.
Drunkenness was extremely common… It seemed for many the only refuge from depression and misery. The effect of drunkenness upon the ordinary relationship of husband and wife, parents and children, was disastrous. There was a woman whose husband used to knock her about badly when in drink. Only he went to the Mission Hall in the commune, was converted and signed the pledge. All went well for some fourth dimension until she again turned up with several bruises. "Oh, Mrs. Smith, has your hubby taken to drink again?" She replied: "Oh, no, that was another lady what washed that! Since my husband went to the Misson Hall, he ain't similar a hubby at all - he is more than like a friend!"
There was a particular indicate of view with regard to wife-beating. A friend of mine was once walking along the street and she passed a woman with a black middle. At the same time ii other women passed, and i of them remarked: "Well, all I can say is, she is a lucky adult female to have a husband to take that problem with her." Another woman who had gone through a similar feel remarked: "Well, it own't pleasant to be knocked about, only the making-upwardly is lovely."
(14) In a speech she made at the Wardorf Hotel on 4th May 1909, Elizabeth Robins argued that women's equality would meliorate relationships betwixt the sexes.
My own adhesion to the Suffrage Cause was given largely because I saw that only through political equality may we hope to see established a true understanding and a happier relationship between the sexes.
Changes in lodge… have long been tending towards increasing separation between men and women, in practically all the interests of life relieve ane. In the globe of industry, of business, of idea - even in what is chosen society, the growing trend has been to divide the world into two carve up camps. Men who are "doing things," or desire to do things, have less and less time to give to an gild of beings having no share and, every bit it came to seem, no stake in the varies aspects - save one - of the dandy game of life. The conditions of modern life are more than and more separating the sexes. Instead of still further dividing usa, Women'south Suffrage is in reality the bridge between the chasm.
(xv) Marie Stopes book Married Beloved was published in March 1918. The volume created a awareness and sold two,000 copes within a fortnight. Many men objected to the feminist sentiments expressed in the book.
Far too oftentimes, spousal relationship puts an end to woman'southward intellectual life. Spousal relationship can never attain its full stature until women possess as much intellectual freedom and freedom of opportunity within it equally practise their partners.
That at present the majority of women neither want freedom for creative work, nor would know how to apply it, is simply a sign that we are still living in the shadow of the coercive and dwarfing influences of the by.
(16) In March 1911, Charles Buxton, the eldest son of Lord Buxton, a wealthy man of affairs and Postmaster General in Herbert Asquith'southward Cabinet, asked Octavia Wilberforce to ally him. Although under extreme pressure from her parents, Octavia refused. She explained her thoughts on receiving Charles Buxton'south proposal, in a letter she wrote to her close friend, Elizabeth Robins.
When I was eighteen I would accept married annihilation that might accept asked me if I thought it would take been advantageous and conducive to fun. Didn't believe in any giddy rot like love and I might take been the virtually amenable daughter alive.
When Charles Buxton'south letter came I was nigh awfully sad and wished I had never seen the boy. I was perfectly miserable and from trying to imagine how he felt I almost felt I was a criminal. When he came and I walked along the lane with him I felt I was a creature and quite dreadfully sad. But when he spoke of it… I of a sudden felt so revolted at what it all meant from my bespeak of view.
Some people are cut out for marriage; they are made for information technology and would be most happy in it. Perhaps people are made differently, but I am non cut out for it. Everybody I know would be shocked and horrified at that statement and at this: the very thought of information technology makes me shudder and it revolts me.
(17) In her autobiography, I Have Been Young, Helena Swanwick, complained about her mother going through her individual papers.
I was angry at what I held to be a violation of my privacy and I exclaimed 'Y'all forget I'm a person!' I remember this because my mother idea information technology so funny, and for long afterward she mocked me saying 'I forgot! You're a Person!' A male child might be a person only non a daughter. This was the ineradicable root of our differences. All my brothers had rights as persons; non I. Till I married (at the age of xx 4), she never, in her center, conceded one personal right. Once I had a hubby her whole attitude towards me changed and just as formerly I could practise nothing right, so latterly, I could practise nothing wrong in her eyes.
(18) Margaret Haig Thomas, This Was My Earth (1933)
During those early years I spent much fourth dimension in walking and driving all over the country. Shortly after I grew up I learned how to drive a motorcar and acquired a second-hand one of my ain, which my parents allowed me to drive about alone at all hours of the mean solar day. In those days, fifty-fifty that made for more than liberty than many young women possessed. On the other paw, I was never allowed to stay the nighttime away lone. I call back on one occasion when with an single cousin, who must take been 30 at the fourth dimension, I went for a few days' motoring tour which included stopping at one or ii hotels, we were made to take a stable-boy with usa to act as chaperone.
Source: https://spartacus-educational.com/Wmarriage.htm
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